Solemnity of the Mother of God

And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.

Luke 2:19

Reflecting in Her Heart

The first day of this New Year finds me in a new way of life; a way of life totally unanticipated at the beginning of 2015. I am no longer a Redemptoristine nun. I no longer live in a monastery pursuing the daily round of prayer, work and recreation. I can no longer depend on the work of others to keep life spinning. It is hard, at times, to know who I am now. (A previous post offers some background to this profound change.)

To append this change to the list of events to which I often refer as "my checkered past" makes me shake my head in disbelief. Italian-American Brooklyn boomer, daughter and sister, college girl, wife, mother, divorcee, single mom to three sons, teacher, graduate student, librarian, parish and community volunteer, contemplative nun, grandmother, and at the age of 70 a lay person once again. It really makes me wonder.

Running over the list in my mind I most often tend to dwell on how much I messed up; all the times and places in which I failed; all the people I let down and did not love well; and all the times I imagine being a disappointment to God. I see all the broken places.

But I have been urged to turn away from notions of brokenness and rather to ponder the continuity of spirit (with an upper case 's' as well as lower) which undergirds the meandering events and occupations of my life. 

The presence of God was always there; the guidance of the Spirit; desire for the Holy One; and the "Hound of Heaven" unrelenting in pursuit of a soul often not knowing where it was headed.

Today's Gospel is a simple one concerning the shepherds coming to see Jesus and praise Him and Mary's reaction to it all. Luke says, "Mary kept all of these things, reflecting on them in her heart." Another translation offered, "Mary wondered at these things, and pondered them in her heart." I wonder and I ponder. "Wonder" suggests awe at the mysterious ways of God and "ponder" speaks of the effort to plumb all these things for depth of meaning.

I have said that I am currently exploring a new contemplative path, a way of living contemplatively in the world as a lay person. In this context my small but very comfortable apartment may be considered my hermitage. I do relish my time here alone. But I am too much of an extrovert to ever dignify myself with the title of hermit. Rather I have returned to an image from the writings of Maria Celeste Crostarosa, foundress of the Redemptoristine Nuns. One collection of her writings is entitled "Il Giardinetto", or "The Little Garden."

But this is no ordinary garden. She suggests that a more precise meaning is this; that for God the 'giardinetto' is the dear enclosed garden in which God and the soul enjoy each other. My little place can be this enclosed garden. It has all the verdant, cool, shady loveliness and protection of a childhood remembrance; the lush grape arbor seriously cultivated by the old Italian immigrant gentleman who lived next door.  

So as Mary kept, wondered, reflected and pondered in her heart the wondrous things that had taken place in her short life, I do the same but with a longer list unrolled over a whole life time and still unfurling to reveal its mysteries. In daily meditation I struggle to center myself, to enter the precious enclosed garden and ponder the meaning.

Ash Wednesday - 2014


A Fitting Sacrifice


Let a crushed heart and spirit
Mean as much as countless offerings...
Let this be our sacrifice today...
Our hearts are completely yours.  Daniel3:39-41, ICEL Translation

Early Boomers like myself are easily brought back in memory to Ash Wednesdays of the distant past. I remember lengthy conversations among the numerous girls on my block in Brooklyn. We debated the comparative value of our planned Lenten sacrifices. The list could include: no gum, no candy, no TV, daily Mass, the Stations every week, total cooperation with and obedience to our parents. Perhaps this habit of picking a good Lenten sacrifice lingers with you too. I would like to suggest here that a good choice might be not to pick a practice at all. Is it really necessary to conjure a new something to do or a new something to give up? Is it possible that the most honest, heartfelt and generous practice would be to cultivate a new awareness and a new attitude toward what already makes our lives difficult? Could we practice the grace-filled art of giving new meaning to that which is difficult or painful, that which God has placed in our lives?

Henry David Thoreau wrote,  “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”  We may not all have live lives of quiet desperation but each person has struggles, anxieties, compulsions, problems that weigh one down; pain, sorrow, grief, or illness in body, mind or spirit. Some live in constant danger or uncertainty or the persistent lack of some essential need whether it be remunerative work, money to pay the bills or unconditional love and personal regard. And some bear daily in their hearts a constant concern for a loved one whose illness is beyond their control to relieve or cure. The list of what may make life difficult, of what may be a constant cross, goes on and on. Even when we create our gratitude lists that very act acknowledges the shadow of what we cannot be grateful for, of what we must endure.

This morning Father Richard Smith, pastor of St. Joachim - St. John the Evangelist Parish here in Beacon, NY, retold the story of St. Francis of Assisi who heard a message from God saying, "Rebuild my Church." Francis took the words literally and set about the arduous work of physically rebuilding a church. Later he realized how his literal interpretation may have come from his own grandiosity. Rather than doing physical work with brick and mortar he was to embody in his behavior the proper attitude of the Church, the attitude of Jesus. He demonstrated this understanding when he met the leper on the road. This was a leper whom he had been taught was disgusting, repulsive and dangerous. This was the leper whom he saw frequently along the road and sought to avoid at all cost. But this time, upon seeing the leper on the road, he went to him and embraced him. Francis embraced the leper and kissed his wound.
                 

Whatever the particulars of  "quiet desperation" in our lives; what we already endure can be the locus of our Lenten sacrifice. We do not have to invent a penance of our own choosing. In the very inventing we express our egoistic need to be in control, to know better than God. By embracing the leper which is our own "quiet desperation" we embrace what, by the Will of God, is present in our daily reality. Instead of pushing it away, of fighting it and resenting it, we can touch it and examine it. We can prayerfully commit to a previously unreached level of acceptance, to greater self-awareness of our struggle. We may even be moved to the penitential practice of seeking help along the way.

Even if we have already accepted these "desperations", close examination can bring us to greater appreciation of the worthiness of our endurance, of its great value as an offering to God. Rather than making ourselves feel guilty because a better person would not have these struggles and burdens we can embrace them and acknowledge them as something beautiful for God.

In today's Gospel (Matthew 6:1-6,16-18) Jesus said, "When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you." What has been presented here is subject matter for your secret whispers in prayer; prayer that is talk of what is real, what is "fitting sacrifice" from the substance of your daily life. The last step is to unite it with the suffering Christ, totally rejected with his flesh nailed into the wood of the cross. To the suffering of this Jesus unite your own examined, accepted, and even embraced, "quiet desperations" for the salvation of the world.

Knitted in Your Mother’s Womb

What mortal hand can e're untie

The filial band that knits me to thy rugged strand.   
Sir Walter Scott 1771-1832 – The Lay of the Last Minstrel

Little Owl cardigan for my grandniece

Is it the Book of Psalms or the Book of Wisdom in which we hear that our creator God knew us as we were being knit in our mother’s womb? Could it be that our God is a knitter? That may be more than a bit of a stretch. But knitting is an apt image of the work of creation – a slow and deliberate effort of the benign artist. Someone once said that “The act of creating is all we know of God.” When we create something with our own hands, out of our own imagination, from our own design – written, painted, sculpted, woven, knitted, embroidered, molded, carved, sewn, constructed, drawn, etc. – we experience the vital creative function of the divine.

Silk and wool vareigated lace weight

A few weeks ago I posted some pictures of knitted lace shawls, the making of which has become a passion of mine. That some of my life be dedicated to the creation of something beautiful, whatever the art form, is a necessity for me. Handwork of many kinds especially knitting, quilting, and spinning fit as hand to glove into contemplative life. This is true of any effort at artistic creation. Designing a garden, arranging flowers, as  well as any and all of the visual and creative arts fit the life of prayer and serve it well. Each is a creative, slow, repetitious, contemplative process that can remove us from the noise and distraction of 21^st century life in the first world.

Handspun merino wool lace weight knit-on edge

Needlework is something practically bred in the bone of my history. I was urrounded by a family and a neighborhood dominated by talk of New York City’s garment industry. Sewing machine operators, sample and pattern makers, pressers were joined by my mother in her youthful pursuit of fashion design. My father would often survey his daughters gathered with their mother around the dinette table all absorbed in needle work of one kind or another and declare, “Another meeting the of the Idleness is Sin Club!” I do not remember being taught to crochet. I just seemed to have always been able to do it beginning with mini-items of clothing for Ginny Dolls of the 1950s. My mother started us in embroidery by handing us a scrap of white fabric, probably torn from an old sheet and stretched in a hoop, along with a sewing needle carrying colorful thread. She would say, “Draw a picture.” Thus we learned how to make a friend of that pesky needle.

Variegated wool sock weight with crochet edge

My mother introduced me to knitting when I was about ten years old but I was significantly helped along by a neighborhood friend a couple of years older who at least knew the knit and purl stitches. Mom’s help was limited. She could not follow written directions and made all of her gorgeous boucle tops via step-by step instructions at the local yarn store. I remember a white blouse with evenly spaced black jet hanging beads and another with a checkerboard motif highlighting the scoop neck. Every Brooklyn neighborhood had at least one yarn emporium in which a sorority of knitters filled chairs pushed up against walls bearing floor to ceiling shelves of  woolen fiber in a riot of color. In high school I decided to knit a real sweater for the first time. Mom was not encouraging and warned that she could not help me with directions. But the older sister of a friend promised I could do it under her guidance. The rest is history. Most of the people I have loved in my life received products of hasty needles performing in the rythym of the continental style of western European knitting.

I tell friends that if I sit in front of the TV without any needlework in my hands they can safely assume that I am dead tired. Years ago, when I began to find myself at many and various meetings, especially evening meetings following a long day of work, knitting came along to keep me attentive and awake. This seems counter intuitive but knitters universally report this phenomenon. We always have a simple project put aside as ‘meeting knitting”. This knitting also helps me to keep my mouth shut. There is also some truth in what Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the author of At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much, declares: “...the number one reason knitters knit is because they are so smart that they need knitting to make boring things interesting. Knitters are so compellingly clever that they simply can't tolerate boredom. It takes more to engage and entertain this kind of human, and they need an outlet or they get into trouble… knitters just can't watch TV without doing something else. Knitters just can't wait in line, knitters just can't sit waiting at the doctor's office. Knitters need knitting to add a layer of interest in other, less constructive ways.”

Natural handspun lace weight

Having tired of sweaters, hats, socks, Afghans, plain shawls, and baby attire I tried lace knitting a few years ago. I failed abysmally when following written directions and was told, “You just must learn to read charts.” It is consoling that at my age I could, with discipline and attention, pick up a new skill. So now I am enchanted by knitted lace. The treasures of antique patterns from European countries are being published, particularly those of the British Isles and Estonia. Yes, lace is knitted. What we call Belgian lace is not knitted. It is woven with intertwining threads each one on its own bobbin. But while women of the Low Countries and France were producing this lace, women in Spain and Ireland were creating wedding ring shawls, lace knitted in such fine yarn that the entire thickness of a shawl could be gathered and run through a wedding ring. Interestingly the history of knitting reveals that it probably originated in the Middle East and that Muslims brought the craft to Europe around the 10^th century.

Today knitting has enjoyed a great revival, especially in its appeal to the young, and not just women. Taught one of my own sons how to knit as we enjoyed a pre-concert picnic on the great lawn of Tanglewood, the Bershires summer home of the Boston Symphony, in Massachusetts. Later he said, “Mom, now I know why you love doing this.”

Links:

http:///www.ravelry.com
(everything knitters want to know about knitting and a zillion patterns)
http://www.knit-a-square.com/history-of-knitting.html  (history)

Book:    No Idle Hands: The Social History of Knitting by Anne L. MacDonald

 

Contemplative Nuns Begin Novena

Novena for the Feast
of Mother of Perpetual Help
Begins Today

Today we announce the beginning of our annual novena to Mother of Perpetual Help. For those who have not received it, I post the 2012 edition of our annual novena letter written by our Prioress Sr. Moira Quinn which was sent out a few weeks ago via surface mail. Please do join us in offering the daily prayer given at the end of the letter. We are united in prayer for a myriad of personal intentions we are receiving. We are also united in prayer for peace in our world, our Church, our communities and our families. 

Although we are not having our usual Tridiuum Masses in the evening prior to the feast we do invite you to join us at 8:00am Mass daily during all the days of the Novena (Sunday at 11:00am). We are located at Cabrini West Park, Route 9W, West Park.

Dear Friends,

In our Advent letter we came to you in the posture of Naomi and Ruth, Mary and Joseph: standing together at the crossroads journeying to a new home.  This Easter season we are now traveling on the Road to Emmaus: bewildered by what has happened, yet walking with Jesus. We beg Him to “Stay with us,” along the journey.  We have “…recognized Him in the breaking of the bread,” and say to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was talking to us on the road!” 

As we write this letter we we still find ourselves "on the road." We have been on the road since spring 2011. After a long search we thought we had found a new home in New Jersey but it was not meant to be. So we continue our search.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Women are like tea bags; you never know how strong they are until they’re put in hot water.”  Our strength, over the last year since we began our search, has come from the Lord, Mary, our Mother of Perpetual Help and so many wonderful people, like you, who have supported us with your prayer, love and friendship.  

Because of this development, we are going to move temporarily into the lower level of Cabrini on the Hudson in West Park.  It is only about five miles south of our Esopus monastery on 9W.  We will have access to their chapel upstairs for our daily Mass.  We will keep the same schedule of 8:00 a.m. Mass Monday through Saturday and 11:00 a.m. on Sundays.  Thankfully, we will still be close to the Redemptorists, our friends, associates and doctors and will be able to keep our post office box in Esopus.  After we settle in, we will renew our search of where the Lord is leading us.

As we do at this time every year, we invite you to participate in our Annual Novena in Honor of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, June 19-27^th.    As Jesus turned to his mother Mary when he was frightened, so we also confidently turn to our Mother of Perpetual Help and invoke her powerful intercession for all our needs and of those of the world.

Because of circumstances beyond our control, we are saddened to inform you that we will not be holding a public Triduum in honor of our Mother of Perpetual Help this year. 

Please keep us in your prayers, and send us your intentions to be placed before the icon of our Mother of Perpetual Help in our chapel as you join us from home throughout the novena, June 19-27:

                               NOVENA PRAYER

All:    Holy Mary, help all in distress,

encourage the fainthearted, console the sorrowful,

be the advocate of all clergy and religious,

strengthen family life,  bring peace to our  world,

intercede for all God’s holy people,

let all feel your aid who implore your Perpetual Help.

       Our Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for us.

      That we may be made worthy of the promises
  of Christ.

   O Lord Jesus Christ,

who has given us your Mother Mary

whose miraculous image we venerate,

to be our Mother, ever ready to help us,

grant we pray, that we who earnestly implore her aid

may deserve to enjoy perpetually

the fruit of your Redemption.

You who live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.

 Pleace and blessings be yours

and may our Mother of Perpetual Help

be your strength in all your needs.

Your Redemptoristine Sisters

"Is multitasking good for the spiritual life?"

Savor the Moment

A few days ago the intrepid blogger Sr. Julie Viera, IHM, co-creator of the site "A Nun's Life" dedicated to exploring the full spectrum of religious life for women in the service of vocation discernment, posed this question: "Is multitasking good for your spiritual life?" Check the blog to see her original essay. The question struck a cord because I am a multitasker from way back. Afterall, I raised three sons and taught second grade. You don't survive in those roles without developing  highly refined skills for multitasking! I see it as part of my organizational skill set, allowing me to get a lot more done in a given period of time then would be expected. It can be very efficient and productive if only you don't put your brain on overload and just fry the circuitry. One of the things I miss here in the monastery is the ability to wash dishes and cook while carrying on a telephone conversation. Such a waste of precious time!

Since I entered the monastery ten years ago the explosion in communications technology has only complicated the matter by making multitasking increasingly possible. For example, cell phones allow folks to communicate with each other daily or many times daily no matter what they are doing or where they may be. As a result, we have seen that it is very hard for women exploring this life to imagine not speaking to their grown children every day.

So what is the concern about this great technique for being efficient and staying in touch?

One of the guidelines for cultivating human relationships is attentiveness and presence. Awake and aware attentiveness and presence is also necessary for developing relationship with God. Our skills at multitasking can become so highly habituated in us that the effort to move to attentiveness and presence becomes very challenging. It can demand a real effort of will to stop and smell the roses.

Creating a conscious, thoughtful balance in our lives seems to be the answer. We cannot become Luddites, rejecting all modern innovation. But we cannot become so enslaved the range of stimuli before us that we lose an esthetic and spiritual sensivity to our environment, our relationships and the action of God in our lives. The author Stephen Mitchell defines prayer as "a quality of attention that makes so much space for the given that it can appear as gift." How does one cultivate that "quality of attention"? The answer for me has been to put multi-tasking in its proper place and to know when it is time to stop and smell the roses. This is a devotion to conscious living, conscious suffering, conscious awareness, also expressed as "the practice of the presence of God".

Feast of the Holy Family

Finding the Savior in the Temple

William Holman Hunt

1827-1910

William Holman Hunt is a recent discovery of mine. There is a wonderful  book by Jaroslav Pelikan featuring images of Jesus throughout history and across cultures (The Illustrated Jesus Through the Centuries) . This painting is a double page spread,  arresting in its colors, complexity and range of images. Each face seems to me a free standing portrait. Each depicts a particular emotion: Mary's relief, Joseph's preplexity, the curiosity of the young student of Torah with a scroll in his lap, the blatant stares of rubber-neckers at the back of the crowd. Jesus is the only one whose eyes gaze perhaps in the viewer's direction but more likely to the other world focus of his motivation; "Did you not know I must be about my Father's business?"

An aspect of the Ignatian method of prayer is use of the imagination. This painting enlivens my imagination, inviting me right into the middle of this incredulous crowd, into the feeling of knowing something new is present, something whose significance I can barely touch.

The work of gifted artists across history and cultures inspires prayer, even the prayer of contemplative nuns. The contemplative eye gazes quietly into the mystery and is drawn to rest within it.

Retreating is Good for the Soul

It has been much too long since my last post. The summer has been a busy one. And that's the truth! All the more reason for me to look forward to six days of quiet personal hermit retreat within our monastery during last week. This is not to be attempted in the normal family home. I know. I tried it. Doesn't work. Sometimes it doesn't even work in a monastery where one's responsibilities may tend to lure one out of solitude. In the family home there are even more ways to be pulled back into the fray. At least here, the meals get prepared, everybody is with the program and does not break into spontaneous conversation upon meeting you in the hall. And there is nothing else that you have to do except to be alone with God. Even in a contemplative monastery the need to occasionally go apart is necessary.

Since our monastery has an almost park-like setting, with paths to walk and a road for strolling down to the river bank, communing with God in creation has great importance for all of us. However, hazy, hot and humid descended last week closing off outdoor meditation as an option. It could have felt like house arrest but it didn't. By the time the days of retreat arrived I felt that I was pretty short on energy and would not be bringing very much to the relationship. I began to mull over the image of spiritually preparing for the retreat as the construction of a humble hut in which to entertain the Lord and listen to whatever He might have to share with me. The weather conspired with the plan and so I spent much time in the humble hut, disposing myself to absorb grace from His presence. And so it was.

For guidance I chose a book I heartily recommend, Moment by Moment - A Retreat in Everyday Life, by Carol Ann Smith, SHCJ and Eugene F. Merz, SJ. (Ave Maria Press, 2000). I quote from the cover:

Drawing on the classic retreat model, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Moment by Moment offers a new and inviting way to find God in our often busy and complex lives. In a series of 32 "Moments," the text guides the reader with thought-provoking questions, practical suggestions, and excerpts carefully chosen from scripture and The Spiritual Exercises. Its simple format can be used by an individual or by groups in a number of ways: as a way of making The Spiritual Exercises in daily life, as a guide for daily prayer, as a companion for reflection, or as suggested themes for a retreat. Drawing upon their extensive experience as spiritual directors, the authors write in their introduction, "This book offers a way to reflect and sift through one's multiple life experiences and to discover in them the leading thread of God's longing and desire to make us a holy people who are given in service to others."

Season of Lent

Last year we offered a Lenten Contemplative Studies Series: three Mondays in Lent beginning at 7pm with presentation, break at 8pm and Night Prayer with the community at 8:15pm. The topics were contemplative values for daily living, contemplative prayer and the contemplative monastic life in our time. We were amazed at the interest in this sessions.

This year we are going to offer material on the history, theology and practice of the Liturgy of the Hours. The main title is The People's Divine Office. Local parish bulletins and newspapers published announcements yesterday and registrations are already coming. There is a hunger out there! Hope we can help to satisfy it in our little way as contemplative nuns who would like their monastery to be a school of prayer for all the faithful.

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes - World Day for the Sick

Revisiting the Rosary -

One Mother to Another

In the last year I have read two books written by daughters of Senator Robert F. Kennedy who was murdered by an assassin while in the midst of his 1968 campaign for the presidency of the United States. In each case, I found their reminiscences of Catholic religious practice in their childhood home most revealing and inspiring. Daily mass, family Rosary in the evening, sacraments and sacramentals, plus parental models formed them in the faith.

Although a cradle Catholic, I do not have that deep familial formation in my background. I was taught to say the Rosary by Sisters of St. Joseph (Brentwood) in classes of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) on Sunday morning and later on Wednesday afternoons. The Rosary was part of Catholic culture as was the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help every Tuesday evening at church and, later on, May crownings at my Catholic high school. However, Marian devotion was not deeply embedded in the way the Kennedy women describe. Yet, I've always had a Rosary nearby - hanging on my bedpost, or in a small pouch at the bottom of my purse. I have never been admitted into the hospital without a Rosary in my possession. When my then fifteen year old son had an emergency appendectomy, I sat with him in the recovery room throughout the night slipping Rosary beads through my fingers. A desperately worried mother had no better place to register her plea, than to another mother.

When my three sons were teenagers, there were many occasions to commit them to the care of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. If I couldn't be there; if there was nothing I could do to help the situation; she would just have to step in and mother them for me. She has never failed.

Praying the Rosary, however, still remained on the periphery of my spiritual practice. Until now. The current challenges to our nation's well-being, to the capacity of families to support themselves and remain intact, to restoration of a compassionate democratic capitalism, can be said to have brought me to my knees. I find myself so concerned for all, so worried for the future of my sons and grandsons and that of my elderly parents that I have come face to face with my powerlessness. There is nothing I can DO. I have no words to find the solution. Prayer is my only recourse, and it seems, a particular kind of prayer.

As a mother with a very troubled heart, I am drawn to another mother who knows only too well the suffering of the maternal heart. Beads running through my fingers, I just sit with Mother Mary; together we contemplate the human condition and the desperate reality; together we plead for those we love and for a country and world in need of restoration.

My own helplessness has brought me to Mary, mother, sister, friend. I present myself wanting to join her in a spirit of utter abandonment to God's will and power, trusting that in her company our voices combine, mine receiving some of the power it lacks in solo. I sit quietly with her, our soul's magnifying the Lord, our maternal voices confiding and praising.

The Professional Language of Monastics

Who's the "Heb" This Week?

That's "heb" with a short 'e' sound. Stands for hebdomadary. That's my job this week. Yes, even contemplative nuns have a "professionalese" vocabulary that often stumps visitors. But the "professional" language of contemplative nuns and monks is an ancient one with many strands of tradition woven throughout.

What is a hebdomadary anyway?

n. [LL. hebdomadarius: cf. F. hebdomadier.](R. C. Ch.) A member of a chapter or convent, whose week it is to officiate in the choir, and perform other services, which, on extraordinary occasions, are performed by the superiors.

In normal language this role is that of leader of prayer. The heb begins each praying of the Liturgy of the Hours in the prescribed manner and in accord with the traditions of the monastery. It is customary here for the leader to knock twice on a wooden pew or chair to signal the beginning of prayer and for most Offices to say, "O God, come to my assistance." To this the nuns respond, "Lord make haste to help me." At the first Office of our day, the Office of Readings, the leader begins with the words, "Lord open my lips" and the nuns reply, "And my mouth will proclaim your praise."

The heb also writes up the Office, preparing a sheet of directions for the Office especially if the day has a memorial of a saint or is a feast or solemnity. The sheet will also include the hymns chosen for the day. Other sisters will have other jobs at the Office. Here we call the list of these assignments the "planche".

This comes from the French influence on the foundations made from France, then to Belgium and then to England and Ireland in the 19th century. Our foundation traces its life back to England where many of the French terms survived. Thus the "planche" or the board or list of assignments.

Another puzzling word to visitors is the "turn". In old monasteries visitors spoke to a sister through a cylinder in the wall that conveniently turned so packages could be left in it by the visitor. The sister assigned to see to the "turn" would make the cylinder revolve so that she could remove the package. I have heard stories of newborn babies being placed in the "turn" to be passed around and kissed by all the sisters on the other side. Today, we still speak of the sister assigned to answer the door and phone as "being on the turn".

Being the Leader of Prayer is a wonderful gift and responsibility, only assigned to sisters in vows. It can be a great chore sometimes - like this week with the Feast of the Archangels tomorrow and three more memorials of saints. One must know how to juggle their breviary and put the correct antiphons or prayers in the right places. Sometimes I need a 'cheat sheet' to make it all come out right. But there is something very special about being the one to first break the great silence of the night by inviting my sisters into prayer. This prayer is, after all, what we are about each day of our lives as contemplatives.

What Are Contemplatives All About?

The Apostolic Work of Prayer

So many people, including Catholics, have no image in their random access memory to attach to the words contemplative life, monastery or cloister. Such images have faded from the radar screen of our culture. There was a time when you could mention Carmelites, St. Therese of Lisieux or Teresa of Avila to help people focus the lens of association. Those words draw blanks now. People ask, “So what work to you do?” And you know they don’t get it.

Then I explain that the life of contemplative nuns is enclosed (confined to the monastery) in service to the apostolic work of prayer; communal prayer in the regular recitation or singing of the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours) and daily private prayer. Such concentration requires that we stay close to home. Our enclosure is no longer the ancient protection against invaders, nor a necessary shield from any violation of precious virginity. It is not a barrier preventing contamination from things and people of the world. Enclosure is rather a withdrawal to the center, enabling constant focus on the monastic search for God. This is the ambiance of recollection. It is the means by which we can maintain silence and solitude and attain the interior peace and grace for prayer and the spiritual journey. Our enclosure is permeable; the door to the monastery swings to open wide to those who wish to experience, in one way or another, this way of life with God. We walk out through the door to satisfy the practical needs of our lives and to educate ourselves in ways essential for personal, communal, and spiritual development and support. But the work of prayer constantly recalls us to the center, to a constant striving for greater intimacy with God and fidelity to our vows.

Monasteries of contemplative nuns invariably become the nexus for expression of human needs and desires before the throne of God. In our daily prayer we give special voice to the needs, ministries and protection of our Redemptorist brothers, members of the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer, with whom we have a special relationship. These days we are praying for the political process working its way in our country, that the wisdom of the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon those seeking to serve and that the “better angels of our nature” will prevail. We are praying for a wide variety of global human needs; for peace and justice, for refugees and those enduring violence of man or nature, for undocumented immigrants, for the poor and the homeless, the addicted and depressed. The list is very long. We also pray for Zachary, a six year old, dealing with treatment for leukemia; for Christine struggling to hold on to her unborn twins until they are mature enough to enter this world; for Riley Jo born very prematurely, now only thirteen inches long and fighting for survival; for friends enduring chemotherapy; for those suffering with depression and other psychological illnesses. This list too is long.

Never far from the prayer of petition is a song of praise in the melody of gratitude. It begs a voice at the sight of rolling hills and flowing river; in realization of the gift of one’s own life and the gift of lives constantly intertwined with mine; in appreciation of gifts received and the ability to use them for good; in gratitude for faith, for the call to religious life and for the gift of community. Such is the blessed context of our prayer.

Much of my own prayer is a conscious coming into the presence of God carrying these prayers and praises and many more; of sitting with them in the sight of God and begging God’s mercy and care. And finally, asking for the grace to accept God’s will in all things.

The Dangers of Solitude

All of the People of God, all of the baptised are called to a life of prayer and contemplation, not just contemplative nuns. Most people get the prayer part but not the contemplation part. How can I, with my busy life, the obligations I am bound to by conscience, my short attention span, my weaknesses and addictions, my phobias and fears, be called to something as other worldly as contemplation? Does it help to translate a life of contemplation as a life of intimacy with God. Or is that notion of intimacy with the Almighty just too scary?

Well, in spite of all the possible objections we are all called to contemplation to some degree or another according to the circumstances of our lives. But, instinctual fear at the thought of such engagement is not so far from the mark. We ask, "What will happen to me if I go there? What will happen if I go to that secluded place, or if I just enter into the seclusion of my own heart and dwell there for a while with God? We are wise to ask.

Believe it or not, there has been a recent wave of people choosing to move even more radically into contemplation by living the life of a hermit. They do not chose to dwell in caves as did St. Anthony of Egypt but make their apartments, their trailers, their cabins or yurts into their hermitage, a place of intense and exclusive intimacy with God.

According to the practice and customs of this monastery silence and solitude are sought and cultivated outside of the times in which we prayer, work, eat and recreate together. For an extrovert like me, these times carved out of daily life feel like my hermitage. For a busy family person, or someone with a career, the time and place they find to engage in the life of prayer and contemplation may feel like their hermitage, their place apart.

And now we get back to that question. What will happen to me if I go there? What will happen to me if I make myself available to God? Some have images of St. Teresa of Avila in levitation, to the ecstatic look of the saints in medieval and Renaissance art. I don't think most of us have to worry about this happening to us. At least, I don't.

Much more realistic possibilities were explored in an article by Kenneth C. Russell entitled The Dangers of Solitude (Review for Religious, Nov.-Dec. 2000, p. 575). The intended audience are hermits living alone. However, I believe that anyone who seriously pursues the contemplative life in the midst of their particular day to day will inevitably face the same experiences. Here is some of his wisdom in the short form. Hope it draws to seek the entire piece.

* If you leave the flurry of activity you will come face to face with the self that you usually scurry around trying to avoid. If one begins to see behaviors for what they truly are it can be awfully uncomfortable. Even worse, it can make it a matter of conscience to do something to correct an unfortunate reality.

* "Hermits [read as contemplatives] also soon discover, as the Carthusian GuigoII put it, that they are a crowd unto themselves." Distractions and temptations will abound. This reminds me of a saying that can be heard in 12 Step support groups. "While you are at a meeting, your addiction is doing push ups in the parking lot." In other words, spending time in contemplation doesn't necessarily make life any easier.

* Solitude, not playing an active part, even for a short time, on the busy stage of life can makes us "vulnerable to the imagination's readiness to reassert our right to a place in the world."

* "Hermits have to live without the external momentum that social interaction usually provides."

To the extent that we are addicted to this momentum, that we think we cannot live without it or that live without it is not worth living, we resist the life of contemplation to which we are all called.

* Doing "good things or deeds" to relieve pressure or to justify a lapse from our contemplative practice can lead us down the proverbial road that is paved with good intentions. For people who are not hermits but living in the world, these can also happen to those enticed into speaking more and more about contemplative prayer to others, to suddenly entertaining groupies and finally to the total collapse of their contemplative life. Russell quotes Aelred of Rievaulx, "When you are pressured to get involved: Tu sede, tu tace, tu sustine. Sit still, keep quiet, and stick to it!"

* The social self will not go lightly into solitude. Our moodiness will show. Solitude once eagerly sought will become distasteful and repugnant. Those who spend time apart can become the target of acedia (dryness in prayer) and sadness.

* In response to all of this is the advice to live in the now. Living in the present moment counter acts weariness and distraction.

* Above all else is the need to remain faithful to the practice and to stay focused on one's center, the place within where God dwells waiting for us to cast the eyes of our soul upon the presence and contemplate the glory.

Our Series Continues

Lenten
Contemplative
Studies
Series

Redemptoristine Nuns

The Art of Contemplative Prayer

Church documents concerning monastic communities have invited them to become schools of prayer. Our current Lenten Series is an effort on the part of our community of contemplative nuns to offer that service to the community which surrounds us, to people who hunger for a deeper spirituality and prayer life. The following is an excerpt from the second presentation in the series.

How can justice be done to this topic in the single hour we share here? We have over 5,500 volumes in our monastery library, most of them concerned with the practice of contemplative life and prayer. As I began to prepare, I said to myself, “What can you be thinking? How can you pretend to even approach this topic when the spiritual giants St. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross wrote whole books?”

All that can be offered here is what the Italians call a “ferverino”, a little fervent input, a spiritual pep talk, a heartfelt invitation, a word of encouragement, a shot in the arm. While in no way comprehensive, it comes from the experience, however limited, of a fellow traveler, who remains surveying the moat that must be traversed to reach Teresa of Avila’s interior castle.

The word “art” in the title of this presentation was chosen very purposefully.

Painting is an art. You can only teach so much about perspective, anatomy, paint mediums, and brushes versus palette knives. The rest relies on the eye, the hand, the imagination of the painter at work and the artist’s illusive inspiration. In the same way, the practice of medicine is an art. The physician applies on the principles and findings of hard science according to his own knowledge, experience and diagnostic instincts. Therefore, just as you would not say that painting and the practice of medicine are methods, the practice of contemplative prayer is not a method either. It is an art, an art learned over time, an art form unique to the individual, an art in which the Holy Spirit has the upper hand...

Contemplative prayer is not a method. IT IS AN ART. It is a turning toward, an orientation to, a predisposition for being present to the transcendent and all loving OTHER, the Lord our God. It has also been described as a long, loving look at the real in which we make ourselves present and available, assuming interiorly an open, listening and receptive posture. This is not at all a passive posture although it can seem to be wasting time with God.

This place of total presence and availability can been seen as the ‘inner room’ which Jesus directed us to enter when we pray. BUT, how can we find this inner room, what will lead us there, what is the path we should take, the directions to follow? This is another aspect of the art form. What activity, what practice will facilitate my entrance into this room? What will provide the doorway for me to slip through so that I can get to the place of my tryst with God?

This is the only consideration where a question of method may play a part.

You may think that in a monastery it is so easy to make the transition, to calm body mind and emotions so as to enter the inner room, the monastic cell of ones heart. Certainly it is easier here than in your world. Thousands of years of fine tuning monastic practice have yielded a way of life centered on making the room readily accessible. However, we too reside in the world of 2008. We must fulfill obligations, clean house, earn an income, pay bills, be devoted in loving charity to community members, family and friends. But the obstacles we experience, the hurdles we must jump or go around are not as high as those you encounter.

When I get into bed at night it feels so good. But I know that I cannot just turn over and expect to fall asleep. My body doesn’t work that way. I am still too ‘rev’d’ up by the events of the day. Experience has taught me that even fifteen minutes of reading, fifteen minutes in which my muscles can relax, and respiration slow down will mean that when I do turn over sleep will not be far behind. Similarly, in my former life, it took a quiet ride home from work to depressurize. If I came to the monastery to sit in the chapel, or if I went home to pray alone in my room, I couldn’t just jump in. Usually what helped me to approach that inner room was to read an office from the Liturgy of the Hours. In the process of reading the psalms I would come near the threshold and by the time I was done I could put my foot through the door. I was physically, mentally and emotionally ready to just BE in the presence of God, to hold the fixed gaze. When my mind wandered, I caught myself and said the name of Jesus, renewing my intention to move from brain to heart and to be present to him alone.

What might your method be, your transitional path from busy every day demanding life into that inner room to which Jesus invites? It might be the Rosary recited thoughtfully. It might be a time of Lectio Divina, holy reading, of scripture or a spiritual classic. This is a prayerful and meditative way of reading. Many great books on this, especially one by the Trappist monk, Michael Casey. Perhaps it could be CENTERING PRAYER as taught by the Trappists Thomas Keating and the late Basil Pennington. Or the ancient tradition of repeating the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” or “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Another path that works for me is writing in my journal. I can vent, talk about what I need or the needs of others in the world or list all those things for which I am grateful. Often an entry will end in a prayer. Someone else may find a slow contemplative walk just the ticket. By this I do not mean race walking or meeting the exercise requirement of your latest diet. This is a very deliberate slow paced stroll – a walk in which you do smell the roses and listen to the birds...

What is it like to spend time in the inner room? First of all what happens there is completely out of your hands except to the degree that you are committed to staying. To get technical, this is the place in which we can enter into infused or mystical contemplation. But don’t wait for it to happen. The late medieval classic on contemplative prayer is aptly titled The Cloud of Unknowing. The movement of the soul required here is such a total surrender, such a turning over of the self to God that it is most often experienced as a great darkness, especially for the ego. The ego is like the spoiled child stamping its feet at having been put aside in favor of another. In this case the other is God. Over time this negation of the ego allows a strengthening of the true self, the self that God created, the deepest self where we are most intimately united with God. The false self, the persona of the ego, was created for our protection in a harsh world. But that persona is hard to leave behind even when we clearly see that it is no longer needed. By our contemplative prayer we can over time, without even becoming aware, begin to shed that false self and find ourselves behaving in new ways, ways more true to our inmost, god-created selves. But don’t kid yourself, the ego will not go down without a fight. Yet from the very energy of our resistance new life can be born.

So, if it is a dark and empty place, if the flash of darkness is very rare, if there is a chance that I may never see it at all, why bother? Only love and desire, only your pure intention will keep bringing you back. But slowly, surely, maybe in barely perceptible ways things will change. Merton spoke of finding oneself by losing oneself even as we survey the heart of darkness. After a while friends may say things like, “I see something different in you. You’ve changed. What’s your secret?” Another paradoxical development may be that by spending time at the solitary center in union with God, you become, in turn, through God united with all that is. This is the gradual apprehension of the essential oneness of all creation.

A while back I was stuck in a long line of traffic. The wait gave me time to read each of an odd assortment of bumper stickers plastered to the rear of the car in front of me. One so struck me that I grabbed a pad to write down. It was quote from the writer and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Han, “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness."

The Lenten Invitation

THE LENTEN CALL

An Invitation


to Accompany Jesus


Is Not Just for Contemplative Nuns

In Catholic culture Lent, it seems to me, has become less concerned with penitential practices and caveats and more a state of mind and heart. I am thinking of the old days (here I really date myself) when conversation in the gang of girls on my block at this time of year was concerned with who would get their ashes first and what you were going to give up for Lent. Would it be T.V. or candy, or maybe reading movie magazines.? Or would you be getting to Mass each day and Stations each week?

For sure this is an ancient girlhood memory. I am filled with gratitude that over the years the deeper spiritual call, the personal call of Jesus, for my companionship along the way to the Cross was expanded upon, drawn out and drawn into my soul.

In the monastery, where Jesus is always the focus, the emphasis at this time is placed on greater exclusivity and depth of relationship via compassionate lingering with the suffering Jesus; the Jesus who suffered in Jerusalem; the Jesus who suffers today in HIV-AIDS ridden Africa, in wartorn Iraq, in shanty towns all over the world and among the illegals and the homeless in our own country.

The lingering I am thinking of here calls to mind the last hours I spent with my dying friend only a few months ago. I just sat at her bedside as she went in and out of sleep. I held her hand and stroked her arm and smiled when she opened her eyes. It was the expression of love through silent presence. Just be with; just hold the hand; just observe, remember and appreciate; just be grateful; just love.

Here is a call for all of us. Be present to Jesus in all of the Psachal Mystery - in His life, death and resurrection. And be present to and conscious of all the people around us and the world in which we live. Jesus is in them all and in the midst of it all. Linger with Him.

A Day of Rededication to Mission

WORLD DAY

for

CONSECRATED LIFE

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Praying for the World with JOY in HOPE and in FAITH

Redemptoristine Nuns are a praying presence on six continents. In prayer and Liturgy, in the Eucharist and the Sacraments we speak words of love and praise and petition for all people. In the tradition of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, we remember in a special way the poorest of the poor and the most abandoned. We pray for an end to violence of all kinds, for all efforts on behalf of peace and justice, for the sick and the dying, the outcasts and the exiled. We pray for our Church and all her ministers, that they be Christ in the world.

In the tradition of our foundress, Maria Celeste Crostarosa, we pray to become that "living memory of Christ" for each other in our monastic communities and for our families, friends and benfactors and for those we meet in the ordinariness of life, at the doctor's office or the line at the supermarket.

For Your Advent Meditation

The daily life of contemplative nuns centers upon communal recitation or singing of the Liturgy of the Hours (aka The Divine Office) and the celebration of the Liturgy of the Word and Eucharist. (For more information on the Liturgy of the Hours, click on that topic in the side bar.)

Today is the first Friday of the month and therefore a day of recollection for our community. We began with the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer followed by Mass at the end of which the Blessed Sacrament was left exposed on the altar for our adoration through the entire morning. This will conclude with Midday Prayer.

The second reading at the Liturgy of the Hours this morning is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful of all, from the Proslogion of St. Anselm. I offer a section of it for your Advent meditation. Its invitation is so timely in face of the realities of our time and culture. It speaks of the deepest desire of our hearts and our human resistance to God's loving invitation.

"Come now, insignificant man, fly for a moment from your affairs, escape for a little while from the tumult of your thoughts. Put aside now your weighty cares and leave your wearisome toils. Abandon yourself for a little to God and rest for a little in him.Enter into the inner chamber of your soul, shut out everything save God and what can be of help in your quest for him and having locked the door seek him out. Speak now, my whole heart, speak now to God: 'I seek your countenance, O Lord, your countenance I seek.'

Come then, Lord my God, teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not present here, where, since you are absent, shall I look for you? On the other hand, if you are everywhere why then, since you are present, do I not see you? But surely you dwell in light inaccessible. And where is this inaccessible light, or how can I approach the inaccessible light? Or who shall lead me and take me into it that I may see you in it? Again, by what signs, under what aspect, shall I seek you? Never have I seen you, Lord my God, I do not know your face.

What shall he do, most high Lord, what shall this exile do, far away from you as he is? What shall your servant do, tormented by love of you and yet cast off far from your face? He yearns to see you and your countenance is too far away from him. He desires to come close to you, and your dwelling place is inaccessible; he longs to find you and does not know where you are; he is eager to seek you out and he does not know your countenance.

Lord, you are my God and my Lord, and never have I seen you. You have created me and recreated me and you have given me all the good things I possess, and still I do not know you. In fine, I was made in order to see you, and I have not yet accomplished what I was made for.

And you, O Lord, how long? How long, Lord, will you be unmindful of us? How long will you turn your countenance from us? When will you look upon us and hear us? When will you enlighten our eyes and show your countenance to us? When will you give yourself again to us?

Look upon us, Lord; hear us, enlighten us, show yourself to us. Give yourself to us that it may be well with us, for without you it goes so ill for us. Have pity upon our efforts and our strivings towards you, for we can avail nothing without you. Teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me as I seek, because I can neither seek you if you do not teach me how, nor find you unless you reveal yourself. Let me seek you in desiring you; let me desire you in seeking you; let me find you in loving you; let me love you in finding you."

St. Anselm of Canterbury, bishop : Proslogion, 1.

Prayer :
O God, You inspired St. Anselm with an ardent desire to find You in prayer and contemplation among the bustle of everyday occupations, help us to take time in the feverish rhythm of our days, among the worries and cares of modern life, for conversation with You, our only hope and salvation! We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen